September NRC Preview; Fishing regulations and a recap of MUCC policy resolutions to be presented to the NRC

This Thursday, September 13th, the Natural Resources Commission(NRC) will meet at Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. The meeting will be held at the Wilderness Visitor Center Auditorium. The address for the meeting are 33303 Headquarters Road, Ontonagon, MI 49953. GPS coordinates for the meeting are at N46 48.910 W 89 37.494. If you are unable to attend please join us on Facebook for the MUCC live stream starting at 1:00 PM.

Starting at 9:00 AM will be the Michigan State Parks Advisory Committee with updates on major maintenance and storm damage that has occurred in the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The update will be followed by an update from the Parks and Recreation Division Chief Ron Olson. Lastly on the agenda for the committee is an update on the Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park Road.

At 1:00 PM is the NRC Policy Committee on Wildlife and Fisheries starting with a Fisheries Chief Update from Jim Dexter. This will include certain fishing regulations up for information as well as brown trout stocking information and Michigan angler demographics and future angler recruitment. After will be a chief’s update from Russ Mason in which he will discuss white-nose syndrome in bats.

At 2:00 PM the NRC Committee of the Whole will meet starting with a director’s report from Keith Creagh. Next will be a legislative report and reports from the previous committees.

Speaking before the NRC will be MUCC Deputy Director Amy Trotter and MUCC President George Lindquist. They will be giving the NRC a recap of the MUCC Annual Convention and the policy resolutions that were passed during it.

Up for information before the NRC are regulations for warmwater species on select waters, designated trout streams for Michigan, state-licensed commercial fishing and fishing tournament registration. In regards to the fishing tournament registration, this item would require registration for tournaments in public water for muskellunge and walleye., which bass tournaments have been doing for several years.  This will help the department to gain better knowledge of certain fishing activities.

Up for action before the NRC is an order to expand the boundary of the Highland field trial lands, certain spawning closures for Cheboygan River and Black River, fishing regulations in Sylvania Wilderness area in the Ottawa National Forest in Gogebic County, netting regulations and ice fishing shanty regulations. The director will be taking action on certain land transactions that are taking place.

A full agenda for this upcoming NRC meeting can be found at: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/September_Agenda_630969_7.pdf